Page 37 of The Truth Serum
“Really,” Madame drawled. “Could Frid have been mistaken?”
He looked back at the dour woman. He knew for a fact that she could appear very pretty when she wanted to but chose this sour look when serving her mistress. “Frid, what did you see?”
“A man beaten and stripped of his shoes—”
“That was me all right—”
“One who survived by diving into the Thames.”
Oh! She had been there. Just how many people had been watching as he was nearly killed?
“That sounds like a very dashing escape,” he drawled.
“That’s why I thought immediately of you,” Madame said. She squeezed his arm. “Now sit down. Ease off your feet, and tell me everything—”
Nate wanted to do it. Besides the pain in his feet, he’d been angling for months to learn more about Madame’s smugglingnetwork. This was the most open she’d been about her activities, and exactly the opportunity he’d been looking for.
But he couldn’t stop thinking about Becca outside with the baron. They hadn’t come back in. That wasn’t unusual, of course. The musicians would be out for another twenty minutes. Many couples took the entire time to stroll outside.
But he didn’t like it. And Fletcher was nowhere to be seen. Good God, didn’t the man comprehend what was involved in the word “chaperone?”
“Nathaniel?” Madame said, a pout in her voice. “I begin to believe you think of another woman!”
“I do,” he said as his gaze slid to Frid. “Do you trust your handmaiden?”
Madame didn’t even look behind her at her maid. “She is paid well and knows the penalty for disappointing me.”
That sounded ominous. Especially since Frid was already betraying her by whispering secrets to Nate. “Then perhaps…” he said as he pressed a kiss into Madame’s palm, “I shall speak with her.”
“Her!” she gasped.
“After I do what I do best,” he said with a suggestive waggle of his brows.
Moving a footstool around, he settled too close to her legs for propriety. It was also a good position to block the view of what he was doing from most of the ballroom and yet still have a sideways view of the French doors.
And then, while he grinned mischievously at Madame, he began a technique that Becca had taught him to reduce swelling. A series of squeezes on the leg, beginning high up and then slowly travelling downward, though still squeezing in an upward motion. It wasn’t sexual, though it could certainly be made so. This would move the body’s fluids up the leg, reducing the swelling in her knee.
And Madame’s eyes fluttered closed as she enjoyed the pressure.
“You have such marvelous hands,” she murmured.
“I shall meet Frid at the apothecary,” he said, his tone firm. “We shall get you a new salve and I shall—”
“You will bring it to me.” She opened her eyes. “Then you will teach Frid how to do this.”
He nodded in agreement. The woman was not lascivious, thank God, though he knew that many would assume so if he were seen going in and out of her chamber. It didn’t matter to him so long as Monsieur didn’t come after him with a weapon. And besides, it perfectly complimented his image as a ne’er-do-well.
“Then I shall meet Frid at the apothecary shop at…”
“Thursday, my lord. Nine of the clock,” the woman said.
He stifled a sigh. That would feel especially early, but he had to fit into her schedule.
“And then,” Madame said with a smile, “you shall come to me.”
He pursed his lips in a kiss, though his face was far from hers. He had to finish the series of squeezes before he could leave her, but he resented every moment that prevented him from checking on Becca. And, damn it, he needed to press his hostess for more information. He’d been working on Madame for months, trying to earn her trust enough to let him in on her smuggling network. He knew she smuggled goods in to England. That was probably what Frid had been doing when she’d seen him beaten. But did Madame smuggle guns out?
“This knee must prevent you from carrying all that brandy,” he murmured so quietly that Madame’s eyes narrowed in on his mouth. She was reading his lips because she could not have clearly heard everything he said. “Mayhaps,” he said clearly, “I can help.”
